tight rope."

[Illustration: THE ACCOMPLISHED AND LUCKY TEA-KETTLE.]

The tinker, thinking this good advice, made arrangements with a
showman, and set up an exhibition. The noise of the kettle's
performances soon spread abroad, until even the princes of the land
sent to order the tinker to come to them; and he grew rich beyond
all his expectations. Even the princesses, too, and the great ladies
of the court, took great delight in the dancing kettle, so that no
sooner had it shown its tricks in one place than it was time for them
to keep some other engagement. At last the tinker grew so rich that he
took the kettle back to the temple, where it was laid up as a precious
treasure, and worshipped as a saint.

[Illustration: THE ACCOMPLISHED AND LUCKY TEA-KETTLE. (2)]

THE CRACKLING MOUNTAIN

Once upon a time there lived an old man and an old woman, who kept a
pet white hare, by which they set great store. One day, a badger, that
lived hard by, came and ate up the food which had been put out for the
hare; so the old man, flying into a great rage, seized the badger,
and, tying the beast up to a tree, went off to the mountain to cut
wood, while the old woman stopped at home and ground the wheat for the
evening porridge. Then the badger, with tears in his eyes, said to the
old woman--

"Please, dame, please untie this rope!"

The dame, thinking that it was a cruel thing to see a poor beast in
pain, undid the rope; but the ungrateful brute was no sooner loose,
than he cried out--

"I'll be revenged for this," and was off in a trice.

When the hare heard this, he went off to the mountain to warn the old
man; and whilst the hare was away on this errand, the badger came
back, and killed the dame. Then the beast, having assumed the old
woman's form, made her dead body into broth, and waited for the old
man to come home from the mountain. When he returned, tired and
hungry, the pretended old woman said--

"Come, come; I've made such a nice broth of the badger you hung up.
Sit down, and make a good supper of it."

With these words she set out the broth, and the old man made a hearty
meal, licking his lips over it, and praising the savoury mess. But as
soon as he had finished eating, the badger, reassuming its natural
shape, cried out--

"Nasty old man! you've eaten your own wife. Look at her bones, lying
in the kitchen sink!" and, laughing contemptuously, the badger ran
away, and disappeared.

Then the old m